While catching up on my Japanese TV episodes, I ran into 1 which concentrated on Japan's tomato industry. Japanese tomatoes (and vegetables in general) are very high in quality where ever you go. The colour, shape, shine and taste turns out to be perfect even without "picking" at the supermarket. How do they do this? This TV program asked Italian tomato experts to discover the "How" and here's what they found:

24 kinds : While countries like Italy have 3 different types of tomatoes to sell commercially (small, medium and large), Japan has 24 different kinds. As seen above, first they categorize the tomato in size (6 sizes), then rank (A-D).

How do they categorize this?: Manually & by machine. After the tomatoes are sorted by size, factory workers visually check the tomato's head (with the leaf) and rank it from A-D. This is done by the factory workers carefully controlling 4 different buttons on a super fast conveyor belt (it takes them ~3 seconds per tomato). These workers are super trained.

After the factory workers: They use machines and check the bottom of the tomato and categorize it by rank (A-D). If the top was an "A", and the bottom was a "D", the tomato will end up being ranked "D".

Finally...: The tomatoes are taken to check the "sweetness" through a machine. This of course determines the final decision of the tomato's rank.

Super detail oriented - right?But this careful Japanese detail results in great customer experience throughout the country. Customers know that they can trust Japanese tomatoes. I must say that this high expectation from customers can result in spoiled customers and in extreme negative comments if the products are not up to par, but this helps in a healthycompetition! This may be why Japanese products are so high in quality. Passion coming from suppliers and trust coming from consumers..

More "Japanese quality" series comin' up! Let me know if you have a specific product/service you would like to learn more about in terms of quality.

I made these Japanese potstickers "Gyoza" for a dinner potluck on Friday. They were a hit! Great for a casual appetizer. They are savoury, easy to eat and will open up your guests' appetite for the upcoming meal.

I've posted a recipe here in the past but the ingredients I used this time are much simpler & easy.Vegetarians! Keep in mind you can also make these without meat.

Ingredients (makes around 25-30 potstickers):

Gyoza wrappers (you can buy them at a Japanese supermarket or an asian one. I've seen them in Wholefoods here in SF)

1/3 minced meat (I used turkey, I also recommend chicken or pork)

Chinese Chives (I bought these also at the Japanese supermarket), if you don't have them, use spring onions

(optional) Any other greens you like, like cabbage

1 tbsp grated ginger

1/2 - 1 tbsp grated garlic

1 tbsp each of Japanese soy sauce, sake, sesame oil

Steps: Please follow the steps on this recipe, I've provided step by step photos! Just make sure to pan fry them right before you are ready to eat them!

Hot pot or shabu shabu is easy to get in cities like San Francisco and Boston. There are Japanese, Korean or Mongolian restaurants who offer it for an okay price! Have you ever thought about doing it at home though? It's easier than you think :)

I bought a portable stove on Amazon (for only $15) and a Japanese pot (for only $10). After that, all you need are veggies, meat and good company (maybe some good beer and sake too).

What you need:

Any veggie, how ever much you want. (I had lettuce, spinach, carrots, radish, zucchini)

Mushrooms

Meat (I had thin sliced pork, some people like beef too)

(Optional) Seafood

Tofu

(Optional) Noodles (e.g. udon)

Sauce (I bought ponzu and sesame sauce, both available on Amazon or Japanese supermarkets)

Yup. That's it!

For your broth, you can get creative (kimchi, soy milk, tomato sauce...); but since I was out of most ingredients, I just poured some sake in water, added a pinch of salt and some dashi.

You get to eat a lot of vegetables, and this dish warms you up. It's perfect for those chilly nights which make you want to feel cozy.

I was surprised to see DAISO (Japanese $1 store) in San Francisco selling hijiki!

Hijiki is a very well known healthy ingredient in Japan; it's high in fiber, iron and calcium. The most popular dish which is made using this ingredient is a simple simmered dish. It's a side dish, not a main dish. People like to throw in carrots, garbanzo beans and even konnyaku. All of which can be found in the US. The ingredients are simmered in a sweet broth made of dashi, soy sauce and sugar. It's simple, tasty and very good for you. Great to pack in your obento too.

Hijiki is usually sold in its dried state. You'll have to soak it in water for 20-30 minutes. The amount will increase by 7 to 8 times; it's fun to watch :)

I was surprised when I saw a small Japanese kabocha being sold at a Farmers Market. Kabocha is a pumpkin or it could also be a winter squash of Asian variety according to Wikipedia.

If you follow my blog, you may have realized that I've been cooking a lot of "boiled" dishes lately. The technique is to "niru" (煮る). When you cook ingredients in a broth, the broth is sucked up by the ingredients, ending up in a very tasty dish. This technique can be used for vegetables, meat and seafood. The best thing about it is that it is so easy. You just prepare the broth (probably just a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, etc), toss in the ingredients drop a lid and wait for the broth to be soaked up!

The dish I'm introducing today is a Japanese kabocha nimono (煮物). Kabocha boiled in Japanese broth. It's sweet but savoury. The more you leave it in the broth, the more intense the taste will get. So be careful in boiling the ingredient too long!

Ingredients:

1/4 of a kabocha (a fairly large kabocha)

Broth

2 tbsp Japanese soy sauce

2 tbsp Japanese mirin

2 tbsp Japanese sake

1 - 2 tbsp sugar (depending on how sweet you like the dish)

3/4 - 1 cup of water

Steps:

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a hot pan. Heat until it starts boils.

Once the broth starts boiling, toss in the cut pumpkins. (Cut them into bite-size pieces)

Place a piece of aluminum foil directly onto the pumpkin. This is called "otoshi-buta" which means to drop a lid directly onto the ingredients. This will help the pumpkin truly soak up the broth. Keep heating on MEDIUM heat.

Heat until the broth has been completely soaked up by the pumpkins.

Note: Mix while heating so that the pumpkin is heated evenly. Also, you can adjust the heat to low since the aluminum foil lid can contain a lot of heat.

I packed the leftovers in my bento the next day. Became tastier than the day before!

With all the amazing vegetables in season and my visits to the farmers markets here in San Francisco, I've been needing to find a way to consume the vegetables but in an easy manner; especially for those weekday dinners at home after work. I've discovered the simplest Japanese vegetable stir fry recipe!

One of my favourite destination in San Francisco so far are the Farmers Markets! There are so many around the city all throughout the week and the quality of vegetables and fruits you get there are outstanding. My favourite so far is the "Heart of the City Farmers Market" in Civic Center. If you follow my Instagram, you should already know that I got 2 large daikons, 4 apricots/peaches, bitter melon and zucchinis, all for $3. I also got a bag full of delicious onions and zucchinis for $1 each last week. You get fruits and veggies in season directly from the farmers, how amazing is that?!

One vegetable I've been seeing a lot at these Farmers Market recently are eggplants!

So I've begun my life as a fulltime employee in San Francisco. Absolutely loving it so far. Starting my second week, I decided to pack obentos to work! There are cute cafes around office but they are all crowded and the last thing I want to do is wait in line! I've never really packed true Japanese obentos myself. I've always watched my mom though. I decided to start simple. A bed of rice with furikake, tamagoyaki and some stir fried veggies. Absolutely perfect.

How to make a simple but delicious and safe to eat obento? Read below!

Rice

I cooked the rice on timer mode so I can pack fresh rice in the morning. Let the rice out to cool before packing it up.

Tamagoyaki (Japanese sweet omelette)

Click here for the link to the recipe. Once you have cooked it, wrap it up in saran wrap and store it in the freezer! In the morning, take it out of the freezer and pack it into your obento. By the time it's lunch time, it will be defrosted and delicious. I promise.

After learning the successful result of my frozen tamagoyaki defrosted by lunch time, I've decided to make batches of them before hand on the weekends so I don't have to do it every night prior. (Yes, my boyfriend and I absolutely LOVE tamagoyakis and can't get enough of them)

Stir fry veggies

I simply stir fried veggies (like zucchini, onion, garlic, mushroom, salt and pepper) and store it in the fridge until next morning.

About This Dish:I head over to my freezer when I find myself hungry and in need of a substantial and healthy Japanese meal at home. Why? Because I usually have a stash of udon hidden in my freezer! Yaki-Udon (Fried Udon) is one of Japan's most popular noodles, udon, stir fried with a bunch of vegetables and optionally meat. This recipe adds a delicious taste to the dish by adding a little bit of sesame oil and Japanese soy sauce! Be creative in your additions and you might end up with an amazing dish for lunch! My mom actually used to make this for me for breakfast. Good old days :)

I've been meaning to use up the avocado I got at Whole Foods ASAP. What better way than to use it in a sweet dessert while your city is on lock down?This pound cake uses no butter, no sugar. Instead I used avocado, cinnamon and honey! The pound cake turned out to be super moist, perfectly chewy and the taste emphasized more on the avocado. If you aren't an avocado lover, I suggest you add a little more honey or cinnamon to mask the taste of avocado!

Like always, my desserts are not as sweet compared to those desserts often sold in the US, so if you are a sweet tooth, make sure to add more honey. Perfect for breakfast or a snack with some lovely tea or coffee!What You Need:(For 5 inch x 2.5 inch container)

1/2 ripe avocado

4 tbsp honey (Remember, I don't make my sweets overly sweet so if you are a sweet tooth, add more!)

2 eggs

100g (1/3 cup and 1+ tbsp) all purpose flour (I used whole wheat)

1.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Steps: (Due to the simplicity, I'm going to go with text based steps rather than posting a photo for each step!)

Preheat the oven to 320F (160C)

Cut up the avocado into cubes (so that they are easily mashed up later) and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds

Mash up the avocado (I used a spoon/fork) until smooth, mix.

Add the honey little by little to the avocado, mix.

Add the eggs, mix.

Add the flour, baking powder and cinnamon, mix.

Pop into the oven for 35+ minutes. Stick a wooden stick into the cake; if there is no residue on it, it should be done!

As you all probably know, Boston has been going through a chaotic couple of hours with the suspect of the Boston Marathon Bombing incident on the run. With a "shelter in place" order, it was a great chance to use up some left over ingredients in the fridge!

"Negi Yaki" is basically a savoury pancake made with just green onions ("Negi"). You usually fold the pancake up and enjoy it like a crepe. I hid some cheese in mine. Since you fry it, the outside becomes very crunchy and since we use starch in the mix, the pancake itself becomes pleasantly chewy. The smell of the sesame oil is perfectly appetizing as well. I mixed some soy sauce, sesame seeds and chopped up garlic as a dipping sauce.

What You Need:(Makes 1 pancake)

A bunch of chopped up green onions/spring onions

2 tbsp all purpose flour (I used whole wheat)

1 tbsp starch (I used corn starch)

4 tbsp water

1 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp Hondashi soup stock

Steps:

Simply mix the ingredients in a bowl.

Heat a skillet on HIGH with oil (I put it about a tsp of olive oil), pour in the mix like a pancake. Fry till crispy.

Place any toppings of your preference (I put in some cheese), turn the heat down to LOW heat, fold the pancake in half like an omelette.

Fry on MEDIUM to HIGH heat until crispy on both sides. Make the dipping sauce and enjoy!

Izakayas are basically casual restaurants who concentrate on serving drinks and small Japanese tapas dishes such as edamame, fried chicken, salads, etc. Back when I lived in Japan, I went to an izakaya on a regular basis to enjoy the "All you can drink" menu as well as regular menus. There are fancy izakayas to regular type of izakayas. Izakayas made for specific target customers too; some izakayas focusing on seafood lovers, some on older business men. It's really fun to scavenge around for your favourite izakaya since there are so many; especially around popular stations.

Back to this recipe of cabbage mixed with salt and sesame oil called "shio-kyabetsu" in Japanese. It's a very simple dish and very popular amongst izakaya lovers and yakiniku (Korean bbq) lovers. It's always served as an appetizer. It's just a perfect salad to accomodate other meaty dishes or alcoholic beverages. Please give it a try, it only takes a minute to make!

I have recently started to buy whole grain pasta after reading numerous nutrition blogs. Pasta is my to-go-dish; I often make it when I'm lazy to make anything else. So what do I do when I'm craving for something Japanese and some pasta? Make "Shoyu pasta"! It's so easy and most of all, you can just dump in any left over veggies or meats into it. This time, I put in 1/2 red onion, mushrooms and green onions. It's quick, easy and delicious.

Ingredients(Used about 300g of dried pasta)

Approximately 260kcal per serving, considering that 1 cup of cooked pasta is 1 serving

300g pasta

(Optional) Vegetables of your choice

(Optional) Meat of your choice

1 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp Japanese soy sauce

Garlic (I put in about 1-2 tsp chopped garlic)

Salt and pepper to taste

Steps

Start cooking the pasta.

In a separate pan, heat the garlic with olive oil. Then, throw in the vegetables/meat and heat until cooked. Add the soy sauce and let it heat. I also put in a couple tablespoons of the water from the boiling pasta to add to the sauce.

Number of steps: 3 stepsTime taken: 15 minutesApproximately 230kcal per serving (this will vary depending on what you decide to put in the rice!)

About This Dish:I did not know "doria" was a Italian dish until today. I had always thought it was a type of French dish since it's so similar to gratin. In Japan, apparently it got popular in the 1920's in Yokohama according to this post. Doria is basically like a gratin but is made of rice, vegetables and meat; often mixed in white cream sauce and topped with melted cheese, cooked in a toaster or oven. This version of doria is a healthy version; no heavy cream, yay! The only doria like characteristic would be the melted cheese. I also use a regular pan, not an oven, so it's easierandquicker to make.

I added chicken sausage to the rice but I highly recommend adding onion, carrots, ground meat of your choice to make it a little more fun. This dish is cute looking, healthy and tastes great. Perfect for when you have friends over.

What You Need:(Makes 2 servings)

2/3 - 1 cup rice (I used brown rice)

1 large red bell pepper

2 tbsp ketchup

Pinch of salt and pepper

2 slices of cheese

(Optional) Meat of your choice (I used 1 chicken sausage with red pepper and spinach from Casual Gourmet, otherwise you can add a ground meat of your choice or skip the meat all together!)

1. Rinse the bell pepper, cut in half and put it in the microwave for 3 minutes on power level 6 (if you can select it).

2. Saute the rice and add meat/vegetables of your choice on MEDIUM to HIGH heat. If you are cooking raw meat, you might want to add the rice after the heat has gone through the other ingredients. Add ketchup, salt and pepper.

3. Stuff the bell pepper with the rice (I was able to fit around 1/3 cup). Top with sliced cheese and garnish of your choice (I happened to have rosemary). Put the lid on a LOW heated pan and cook for 10 minutes.